Wednesday, February 17, 2010

The 10-minute rule for exercise

Face it, we hate to exercise - otherwise 2/3 of us wouldn't be overweight and 1/3 of us wouldn't be Type II diabetic and 3/4 of us wouldn't be sedentary and half of us wouldn't die of heart disease.  Exercise is pretty low on most folks' list of things to do today.  But we have to get some regular exercise if we don't want to face that long, slow, painful decline.
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I have this guideline for the particularly bad days when I can't convince my mind to kick my butt into gear.  I call it the 10-minute rule.  I do my exercise routine for 10 minutes and at the end of 10 minutes I decide whether or not I feel better.  It almost always works, at least for me and at least for the exercise modalities that I prefer (yoga, judo, aikido).  It's pretty easy to find something in the first ten minutes that is so stimulating that it motivates me to keep going.
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And on those days that it doesn't work - just don't exercise.  I figure if your mind and spirit are so out of it that 10 minutes won't pique your interest, you need rest more than exercise.  And if nothing else, you just got ten minutes of exercise, which is more than 3/4 of the population will get today!
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So, some on!  You can do it for 10 minutes!  Then you can decide if you want to do some more.

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮
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1 comment:

  1. It's actually good to start exercising for 10 minutes at first, then determine if you want some more in the next days to come.

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